Series: A Growing Choice - Charter Schools in N.H.

New Hampshire now has 25 of these alternative public schools, after a spate of rapid growth. We’ll look at some of the themes raised in NHPR’s recent series, A Growing Choice.  These include how charter schools are funded, who their students are, and what overall role they play in public education. 

Guests:

The national charter school movement is growing - 2.5 million students are attending roughly 6,000 charter schools.

Another 1 million students are on wait lists.

Still, there are issues: charter schools overall receive less funding than traditional public schools and are located primarily in urban areas, limiting access to students in rural communities.

For Dakota Benedetto, trying to get a charter school approved hasn't been an easy task.

They ask for a five-year projected budget. Since the first year is kind of pre-opening, but you’re still at least a year out from when you’re writing it, you’re looking six or seven years in advance, so how much money are you going to be spending on copy paper seven years from now? That whole process of trying to juggle the numbers and get the budget to work was challenging. 

Two new charter schools that opened this fall each have a unique philosophy toward education.

But the first few weeks for these new additions to the state’s school choice roster show just how bumpy the road to opening a charter school can be.

Tom Raffio, chair of the New Hampshire Board of Education, says with declining enrollment across the state, the continued growth of charter schools need to be looked at from a public policy perspective.

"Public schools, regular public schools are starting to lay off teachers because of the fact that there are fewer pupils. If students also go to charter schools, there will be a further diffusion of resources. So we want to look at it from an overarching perspective."

North of the notches, the only charter school choice for students is the North Country Charter Academy, which serves high school-aged students in Littleton and Lancaster who have struggled in a traditional school setting.

Avion Erceg is one of those students.

She’s 16 years old and lives in Lincoln, and is one of about 20 students sitting at their computers in a classroom at the Littleton campus on a recent morning.

At the Academy for Science and Design in Nashua, National Science Bowl championship banners hang on the cafeteria.

Test scores here are some of the highest in the state; 96 percent of the school’s eighth-graders are proficient in math.

Compare that to just 64 percent statewide.

  As charter schools continue to expand in New Hampshire, one thing is clear – how to deal with special education is a big sticking point.